April, 1979. Three women, striving to flourish under the shadow of the moor…

In her troubled youth, Barbara hitch-hiked over the hills to legendary Northern Soul clubs, where wild nights of dancing allowed her to swirl away, free from herself. Now, years on, she’s stuck in hospital, secretly relieved to have found a place safe from the Yorkshire Ripper’s murderous rampage.

But Barbara’s 13-year-old daughter, Shell, defies the fear that has gripped their valley. As free-spirited as her mother was, she’s keeping tabs on all the shady blokes in her town who could be the Ripper…

Meanwhile Mrs Trivet, the fierce family matriarch, goes on driving a battered pie van over the hills, offering lifts to the hitch-hikers who remind her of her daughter: lonely misfits, workless strangers, teenage vagrants…

‘A novella that opens with lines by Halldor Laxness and a simple idea: a dandelion striving to live. And that is the intricate charm of this story: inside the mythical and dark structure is the simple idea of how to live. It’s a story of ‘soft things in hard places’.’
– Michelle Elvy, author of the everrumble.

‘The funny and surreal collide so perfectly in David Swann’s work. If you haven’t read any of his flash, you’re in for a treat. I’m jealous of you.’
– Jonathan Cardew, Connotation Press.

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-34-6; 133mm x 203mm; 160pp

£13.99 GBP

Release Date 14^th June
The benefit from a 25% pre order discount, please enter the code 3X0523 at checkout. Pre orders are normally shipped a couple of days before the release date.

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‘Essence unpeels a set of characters through quiet, precise details to reveal what lies beneath. It’s a rich exploration of cause, effect and connection that is unflinching and beautiful at the same time.’
—Stephanie Carty, author of The Peculiarities of Yearning

‘Essence stands out for its structure and control. I admire the way it plays with the meaning, through its subsections, of the phases in the characters’ lives, and the way it shifts reader focus and expectations. This novella demands patience, in all the right ways.
—Michelle Elvy, author of the other side of better

‘Chris Drew’s beautifully distilled prose leaves no room for distraction or false impression. He writes simply, with clarity, and truly to the heart of each piece. Each flash is a cross section of the human condition, a tap on the heart. All told with a simplicity that reads easy but lingers.’
—Peter Jordan, author of Calls to Distant Places

‘In Essence, Drew makes the most of the possibilities offered by the novella-in-flash form: one story, a shared history, that fans out to reveal the individual struggles and triumphs of six siblings. A tale of breaking and recovering, soaring and falling, Essence contains a perfect balance of complexity and simplicity. Each reader will take something different from this ultimately uplifting book.’
—Johanna Robinson, author of Homing

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-36-0; 133mm x 203mm; 70pp

£10.99 GBP

Release Date 14^th June
The benefit from a 25% pre order discount, please enter the code 3X0523 at checkout. Pre orders are normally shipped a couple of days before the release date.

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A novella that weaves in and out of a family life, and the events of the day, some dramatic (fires and space exploration), some mundane (a mother’s habitual pulling at her eyelashes, a father’s obsession with a cat). Slowly, the writer builds expectations around what’s in store; there’s NASA and the Florida beach and the moon shot and the war in Vietnam.
~ Michelle Elvy, author of the everrumble and the other side of better.

The twenty-nine interlinked stories in Sheree Shatsky’s Summer 1969 locate the reader in a place and time that’s both poignant and powerful. The events of that summer – the Manson murders, the first moon landing and Vietnam – are background accompaniment for the characters as they move through their daily lives: the slowly unraveling father, the spendthrift mother and a neighbor girl named Jane who’s sent away to juvenile detention after torching the family home. At the heart of these stories is the narrator, the daughter on whom nothing is lost, an insightful witness to the beginnings and the ends of things. Each of these stories feels like an exquisitely detailed jewel, assembled to form this powerful crown of a novella.
~ Sarah Freligh, author of We and Sad Math

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-38-4; 133mm x 203mm; 58pp

£10.99 GBP

Release Date 14^th June
The benefit from a 25% pre order discount, please enter the code 3X0523 at checkout. Pre orders are normally shipped a couple of days before the release date.

Pre-Order Here